When looking to stock your pond, you may notice that the price of koi fish varies wildly based on the coloration and size of the fish, along with where you purchase it from.
This can be a little bit overwhelming because you obviously want a quality fish but with some prices reaching the hundreds, it can be tricky to pick what is right for your pond.
If you are not picky about color or sub-variety, there is a way to get a lot of baby koi for an affordable rate.
Let’s take a look at how much is a baby koi fish and see about finding the best deal possible for a batch you can raise all on your own!
What is “Peanut”?
When looking for baby koi online, you may see the word, “peanut”, thrown around a lot.
This is a bit strange but it actually is used to refer to the baby koi themselves, as they look a bit like itty bitty peanuts as they begin to develop into the big, beautiful giants we all know and love.
If you are purchasing peanuts, it is the same thing in most places as purchasing a listing for baby koi fish.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at five of the best places to buy baby koi or koi peanuts affordably online!
Generally, you will pay around $100-$150 per 50-100 baby koi, though this varies based on what time of year, where you source the koi from, and how big the babies are.
Shop around and you can find some amazing deals.
Let’s explore those five shops and see what makes them so special.
The Best Baby Koi Fish Shops
There are tons of amazing breeders and shops online that carry baby koi fish.
We selected these five due to their customer reviews, the variety of koi available, price, shipping, and a host of other factors, including the quality of the babies.
Let’s explore each and see if any are right for your koi peanut shopping needs!
Blackwater Creek Koi Farms Inc has been around for years in the koi industry and provides a wide range of high-quality koi fish in a ton of sub-varieties, all of which are big, beautiful, and healthy.
They also offer one of the best peanut packages around!
As a result of an expansive breeding process, Blackwater Creek offers their koi peanuts unculled, meaning that you have an extremely high chance of getting some really cool, pretty color variations within the batch.
Their batches include both regular and butterfly koi and all of the koi come from a mix of different batches, allowing for a wide range of potential color and type variations.
Typically, with this option, you will receive between 150 and 250 baby koi, varying based on their size.
If you want the chance to get some super interesting color variations, this is a great way to increase your odds.
As a fast service koi retailer, Next Day Koi is working to make koi fish more accessible to a wider range of owners.
This means that that they market on a massive scale and breed often, resulting in tons of baby koi grab bags.
You never know what you are going to get in these grab bags, meaning it could be a ton of super healthy natural colored koi or a batch with some super special colorations.
Either way, you are in for a treat with this amazing, diverse product.
They even sometimes offer ghost koi grab bags, too!
If you want an affordable option, try and catch these amazing grab bags when they are in stock!
Another company offering unculled baby koi at random, Koi to the World is a great, lower-cost option that has a lot of different batches available at any given moment.
You can pick up babies at an interval of fifty, one hundred, two hundred, or one thousand counts per package, ensuring you can get the exact amount of fish you want without risking overstocking if they run on the small size.
All koi from Koi to the World are very healthy and generally grow into big beautiful fish over time.
Plus, reviewers note the koi come very well packaged and in diverse colorations, making for a safe and fun purchase.
As a scientific-based site that provides well-bred koi, Aquatic Nutrition’s koi peanuts are some of the best and most often overlooked.
Due to this, the price is very fair and the brand as a whole has some amazing products available across the board.
You can get some super cool colorations and actually view some of the parent koi used in breeding for the koi peanuts, which is a well-thought-out detail that makes for an even more interesting koi peanut purchasing experience!
This company is definitely worth checking out if you want healthy, stunning koi peanuts.
5. Local Pet Stores
While not a website, you can sometimes find very pretty basic koi peanuts at your local pet store, even if they are a chain.
Many pet stores stock basic koi fish and keep them in small sizes since they are easier to house in smaller spaces under such conditions.
Due to this, you can actually stock up for relatively cheap and skip the shipping costs and stress, making for a simplified experience if you did not want to purchase from a specific breeder.
While you will not get the diversity and high-quality bloodline of a traditional breeder, you will still get some very special, interesting koi fish, making this worth checking out.
The same can be said for local breeders if you are lucky enough to have one nearby.
Local breeders often sell peanuts for very affordable rates and you get the diversity of an online shop with the lack of shipping stress and expense of a traditional brick and mortar store.
Either way, you can find some amazing koi fish fairly easily in today’s market.
Just be sure to follow proper quarantine procedures and keep an eye on the babies for any interesting color patterns that might be worth cultivating.
Who knows, you just might end up with some amazing, truly exciting color patterns!
Its all part of the fun. Good luck!
